


Saturday Is Calling Me: Dream Arthur Continuation

by jenna_marianne



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Drama, M/M, Remix, Sequel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-08-30
Updated: 2010-08-30
Packaged: 2017-10-20 20:15:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,276
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/216700
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jenna_marianne/pseuds/jenna_marianne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“You know no matter what I say to that, it could go either way. Either I’m your imaginary friend, or I really am a CIA dream-operative, trapped in a coma. There’s only one way to find out for sure.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Saturday Is Calling Me: Dream Arthur Continuation

**Author's Note:**

  * For [feverbeats](https://archiveofourown.org/users/feverbeats/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Saturday Is Calling Me](https://archiveofourown.org/works/110268) by [feverbeats](https://archiveofourown.org/users/feverbeats/pseuds/feverbeats). 



Eames had been dealing with his strange projection, Arthur, for months now. Longer, if you count dream-time. He’d waltz in whenever Eames was using the PASIV, wearing impeccable three-piece suits and a smirk, or no expression at all.

Eames was sure he was going insane. Thankfully, none of his fellow dream thieves had noticed Arthur. He stayed back when others were around, unless Eames needed a hand, but that was usually against a marks projections. But just because no one had noticed yet didn’t mean that Eames wasn’t losing his marbles. He’d seen others go down that path, particularly the top extractor in the business, Cobb, whose dead wife had haunted him still, years after her suicide. Eames didn’t want to end up like that, with a homicidal projection spoiling jobs and booting any fellow dreamers out of his subconscious with a knife to the gut or a bullet to the brain. Though Arthur didn’t operate that way.

Every time Eames tried to get Arthur to talk, to figure out what was going on in his own mind, Arthur would just smirk at him, insufferably. It was no different in this dream. Eames decided to put his cards on the table. Literally. He had a straight flush. Arthur, of course, had a better hand. Eames had been hoping to sort out his mind while taking a break for forging, so here he was, hooked up to a PASIV, in a casino with his own rouge projection.

“Are you finally going to tell me what you represent, why you keep hanging around my mind?” Eames asked.

“I represent myself,” replied Arthur, obtuse as ever. Eames could read just about anyone, in or out of dreams. Of course, the one person he couldn’t figure at all was a product of his own mind.

“Arthur, I’m going mad. I don’t want to end up like Cobb.” Arthur’s expression turned thunderous, his brows coming down in a harsh frown. “Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate all the times you’ve saved my neck. It’s much better than Cobb’s dead wife sabotaging him every chance she gets.” Arthur’s frown evened out; now he looked more thoughtful. Hopefully Eames was getting through.

“Please Arthur, I can’t keep going on like this. People will start to notice. You're the start, and if I don’t do something now, I’ll probably end up a gibbering idiot or stuck in Limbo. If you're the first symptom, what happens next!” Eames tried to calm himself down, hand moving over and over his poker chip, feeling the upraised lettering that always reminded him where the line between awake and asleep lay.

“All right,” Arthur finally said, after a long pause. “You really think my presence here means you’re losing your grasp on reality?”

Eames didn’t look up from the green velvet of the poker table, just nodded, then took a gulp of his scotch.

“All right,” Arthur repeated, “All right,” and sighed. “You’re not crazy.”

Eames snorted at this, “Not bloody likely.”

“No, you’re not. I’m not a projection,” Arthur stated in an even tone.

Eames’ gaze shot up from the ice floating in what was left of his scotch to Arthur’s face. “Riiiight, you only exist in my head, or follow me in to other dreamers minds, but _aren’t_ a projection?”

Arthur paused, then the tension went out of his shoulders and he leaned back in his chair, as if he’d made a decision. It was the most relaxed Eames had ever seen him. “Well, I’m _projecting_ into your mind, not _a projection_ of your mind.”

“What?” Eames was slack-jawed, dumbfounded.

“See, this is why I’ve never told anybody. Who would believe me? Ever hear of astral projection?” Arthur asked, leaning forward, his serious eyes boring into Eames.’

Eames leaned away, “It’s worse than I thought, I really have gone mad.”

Arthur honest-to-God rolled his eyes. It was the most animated Eames had ever seen him; too bad it meant Eames had finally gone round the bend.

“Eames, you’re not listening. I’m real. I can just do what no one else can, I can go into other people's dreams without a PASIV.”

“All right, for the sake of argument; we know who, where and when, me and my dreams. I’m curious about the how and the why, if you really are ‘astral projecting.’”

Arthur leaned back again in his chair, running a hand through his hair. Who knew it was curly? “Now you’re really not going to believe me. I was in on the early military tests, the first ones for the PASIV prototypes, the final version of the PASIV, and more. I helped test Somacin and its variants. I was helping test out their new devices, too. And something went wrong.”

Wow, thought Eames, impressed with the creativity of his own subconscious. Well, he was the top forger in the field, that took imagination.

Arthur snapped in front of his nose, “Paying attention?”

“Yes, Arthur. Do go on, you're an beta-tester for the dream biz, I got it.”

“Not a ‘beta tester,’ a hand-picked officer from the CIA helping design and test the technology, and,” his teeth gritting, “something went wrong.” His fists were clenched on the table, frustration palpable. “Some combination of the new machine and the new drugs, it knocked me down so far, I can’t wake up. They think I’m in a coma or Limbo, whatever you want to call it. But the new machine worked, I can go where ever I want, I just can’t wake up.”

Arthur’s shoulders looked so tense again, Eames couldn’t help but grip one in sympathy. “Okay, if this is true, and you can go anywhere, why didn’t you go to your co-workers dreams, let them know you're still rattling around.”

“Some didn’t believe me, thought I was a projection,” he said with a pointed glare at Eames, “Others thought it was a possibility, and they keep me hooked up to the machines, monitoring me. I’m an experiment.” Arthur straightened again, looking more put-together now that the bizarre story was mostly told. “So I got bored, and started wandering. I hopped from dream to dream. Regular dreamers were boring, most times they didn’t even notice I was there, and they were so ordinary.

“So I sought out dream-thieves like yourself. Tagged along on heists. People still didn’t notice me, most of the time, thought I was a projection. Sometimes I helped the extractors, sometimes I helped the subjects.” Then Arthur looked up again, straight at Eames, “then I ran into you on a job, do you remember?” Eames nods absently, transfixed by Arthur’s intensity. “You chatted me up on that job in Taipei, that energy mogul. I had my first real conversation in ages. You weren’t boring.”

“Tell me, is this real, is it true?” Eames demanded.

“You know no matter what I say to that, it could go either way. Either I’m your imaginary friend, or I really am a CIA dream-operative, trapped in a coma. There’s only one way to find out for sure.” Their eye were locked now, had been for a while.

“How?” Eames breathed.

“Find me...go to Quantico, sub-basement four. Find me and help me wake up!” Arthur said in with a fevered pitch to his voice.

Staring into those deep brown eyes, an intense, unique, one-of-a-kind mind looking out at him, Eames finally started to believe. Either he was the most imaginative mad-man, or Arthur was real. Eames knew what he wanted to be true. Arthur watched him think it through.

“Okay,” said Eames.

“Okay?” said Arthur, smiling.

“Yeah, okay. You got a plan?” asked Eames.

Arthur’s smile widened, “Of course.”

**Author's Note:**

> Commentfic sequel to part 6 of "Saturday is Calling Me" by feverbeats.


End file.
